Commonwealth Bank bosses are forced to admit to making major mistake
In July, the bank announced it would scrap 45 call centre positions in favour of a new AI voicebot designed to handle customer enquiries.
At the time, executives argued the technology would ease pressure on staff by reducing call volumes.
But the move backfired and instead, call volumes surged after the rollout, forcing Commonwealth Bank bosses to jump on the phones themselves to deal with the overflow.
The bank has apologised to affected employees and is now scrambling to keep them in the jobs.
'We have apologised to the employees concerned and acknowledge we should have been more thorough in our assessment of the roles required,' a spokesperson told Daily Mail.
'We are currently supporting affected employees and have provided them with choice regarding continuing in their current roles, pursuing redeployment within CBA or to proceed with leaving the organisation.'
When Daily Mail asked the CBA if AI would threaten more jobs in the future, the bank refused to answer the question.
Financial Sector Union national secretary Julia Angrisano said the damage was already done for the 45 workers who endured weeks of stress, not knowing if they would be able to pay bills and support their families.
'This is a massive win for workers, proving what can be achieved when members stand together, but let's be clear, this is no victory lap,' FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano said in a statement sent to Daily Mail.
'CBA has been caught out trying to dress up job cuts as innovation. Using AI as a cover for slashing secure jobs is a cynical cost-cutting exercise, and workers know it.
'CBA likes to talk about being a digital leader, but real leadership means investing in your people, not tossing them aside and blaming the technology.'
When the job cuts were first announced last month, before the plan was scrapped, a CBA spokesperson insisted the company was 'investing in the future'.
'To meet the changing needs of our customers, like many organisations, we review the skills we need and how we're organised to deliver the best customer experiences and outcomes,' a CBA spokesman said in July.
'Our investment in technology, including AI, is making it easier and faster for customers to get help, especially in our call centres. By automating simple queries, our teams can focus on more complex customer queries that need empathy and experience.
Commonwealth Bank also sparked backlash in July for sending 100 jobs to India after retrenching hundreds of local staff with a union accusing it of offshoring work for cheaper labour.
The Commonwealth Bank said that 304 Australians would be made redundant in technology and retail roles.
This occurred as 110 jobs, affected by redundancies in Australia, were created at the Commonwealth Bank's Bangalore-based subsidiary, CBA India.
These new jobs in India included job titles that had existed in Australia including staff data engineer, senior software engineers, staff software engineer, engineering manager, software engineer and senior data engineer.
The Commonwealth Bank, Australia's biggest home lender, has doubled the number of staff in India in just two years.
The Commonwealth Bank's number of staff in India more than doubled in two years, growing from 2,854 employees in June 2022 to 5,630 by June 2024, its most recent annual report revealed.
This occurred as the number of staff in Australia fell from 38,153 to 36,572, with many retrenchments related to bank branch closures in big cities.
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